HS+FINAL+ASSESSMENT

__** FINAL ASSESSMENT HUMAN SCIENCES: **__

Find a real world situation that illustrates one of the “problems” of the human sciences as discussed in class. This can be in the form of a magazine article, news story, film (documentary or narrative) or a recent event.


 * Summarize the example.
 * Identify the “problems” as we have tried to identify in class (see chart below)
 * Present counter-claims or a defense of these weaknesses.
 * Formulate at least one Knowledge Issue from the example.

You may wish to refer to the following chart:

10. Laws in the Human Sciences are probabilistic in nature. ||
 * Observation || # We cannot directly observe other people’s minds.
 * 1) Questionnaires may be biased or misleading.
 * 2) Observing people may affect the way they behave. ||
 * Measurement || 4. Social phenomena are difficult to measure. ||
 * Hypothesis || 5. The act of prediction may affect the behavior predicted. ||
 * Experiments || # Human sciences study complex social situations in which it is difficult to run controlled experiments.
 * 1) Various moral considerations limit our willingness to experiment. ||
 * Laws || # Human sciences are not very good at predicting things.
 * 1) Human sciences usually uncover trends rather than laws.

The following resources may help although you may find your own examples:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/ [] / [] / [] / http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com/ http://www.ted.com/talks FRONTLINE: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

THE LIBRARY ALSO HAS MANY PERIODICALS THAT YOU CAN USE.

TEMPLATE FOR RESPONSE: